Yes, its a cliche'd statement however, I felt the need to write something about this after the experience I have had over the past few months with someone very special in my life.
A few years ago, my mother was diagnosed with breast cancer, it was a a very traumatic revelation not only for her but also for the rest of the family. Those initial few days from diagnosis to action seemed surreal - I was in my early 20's and couldn't quite fathom or grasp what was happening. I saw my mum morphing from the happy go lucky person into a very lost and depressed person. Having limited access to the www we really had no clue what all this meant, we followed the motions laid out for us by the doctors and the radiologists and that was that. In my country there is nothing called counselling for these sorts of things, the patient so to speak is left to basically deal with it as best they can.
It took her years to heal emotionally as well as physically.
After 13 years, last october we had the angel of doom give us the news that there was a tumour recurrence, this time, thankfully we had the www to counter check everything to make sure we knew what was going on every step of the way and naturally we were all older and wiser and readier if thats what you call it, to deal with the next steps and do what we had to do. Its taken 9 months with chemo and radiation to get to a point where the doctor finally says we are over the worst and the cancer has been cleared.... thank God.
This time around though there was one major difference from years ago and that was MUM. I was amazed to see just how strong she was emotionally. At times when the stress of everything was overwhelming, and well meaning family and friends actually questioned me or my brother if we were doing the right thing, she stood un-waivered, assuring us both that we were doing the right thing (my reaction was just to retort and say 'yeah i'm gonna do something that's gonna kill her off') I cant imagine going through most of what she had too in the past few months, at many points in the process I could feel myself giving up almost, but not MUM she stood firm in her belief that she was going to be ok. She kept that smile on her face and stood up strongly against every thing that came in front of her. The perils of Chemotherapy, the reaction to the chemo overdose and the daily radiation that took its toll nothing could wipe that smile off her face.
Kudos to you MA, you are a testament to your faith, and a strength to us all - I am more in awe of you today than I have been of anyone in my life, you have shown me that all you need to have in your life is the faith to get you through each day. May you grow stronger in your belief and be a strength to every cancer patient who needs to win the battle over this wretched disease.
We love you.
